2025 Summer Institute Facilitator Bios

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Jeff Ellenbogen: Makerspace Pedagogy Facilitator

Jeff Ellenbogen is the Director of Innovation and Technology at Dawson School in Lafayette, Colorado. His career in independent schools spans over 25 years, enriching the lives of students across all grade levels. Starting as a lower school science teacher, Jeff later transitioned into teaching Middle and Upper school mathematics for 15 years before pivoting toward technology leadership and has served as both IT Director and Director of Innovation and Technology over the past decade.

He has always had a natural proclivity to explore new tools and to find ways to express himself creatively. As his career shifted from math toward technology he has found so much joy in helping students as well as colleagues solve problems and construct their own learning pathways using a multitude of tools. Providing students with authentic learning experiences where they guide their own learning pursuits has fueled Jeff’s passion for Makerspace education. Jeff loves designing projects that give students as much opportunity as possible to explore, iterate, and reflect on their work and to take ownership of their learning.

Chris Supiro: Makerspace Pedagogy Facilitator

Chris Supiro is the Director of the Center for Innovation at Dawson School in Lafayette, Colorado.  Chris has been teaching in and designing curriculum for makerspaces since 2018.  He began his career as a technical specialist for Snap-on Industrial Brands where he found a passion for training and mentoring new colleagues.  He then pivoted to education and became the first teacher to design and teach a makerspace class at Stuyvesant High School in New York.  Chris moved to Boulder to run the Dawson Center for Innovation in July 2020.   

One of Chris’s main focuses at Dawson has been to ensure that the Innovation Center is an inclusive space where students and teachers alike can engage in self-directed learning.  Chris strives to establish a culture where everyone working in the Innovation Center feels encouraged to take on new challenges, explore creative solutions, and develop and expand their skill set with the tools and technologies available in the makerspace.  Chris splits his time between teaching innovation and technology-focused classes in the makerspace, facilitating interdisciplinary units for classes in other departments, and working with students on independent projects.  With every project a student or faculty member undertakes, Chris sees the maker gain not only their finished product, but also dozens of new skills and a greater readiness to learn and create going forward.  Chris is excited to share his experiences and learn from everyone in the Makerspace Cohort.

Megan Hayes-Golding: Science Discipline Facilitator

Megan joins us from Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, where she teaches physics and mathematics plus coaches the robotics team. A 2025 Massachusetts state finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST), Megan’s professional interests include student belonging, grading reform, meaningful assessment, and the neuroscience of learning. Her current favorite assessment is the lab practical, where students solve a single problem in a lab setting. For instance, in Coyote vs. Road Runner, students have to time Coyote’s release down a hill so that he intercepts Road Runner running along the road. Her 9th graders model the scenario, predict when to let Coyote start running, and test their predictions. Weeks of working through the experiential learning cycle pay off the moment Coyote nabs Road Runner. Megan is eager to explore with other science teachers how they can also implement experiential pedagogy.

Megan has three children with her wife, Liz. Some of her best family memories were made at and around the kitchen table. Megan holds a MAT in Secondary Mathematics Education from Georgia State University and a Bachelor of Engineering in Materials Engineering from Auburn University.

Sarah Tiamiyu: Elementary Ed Facilitator

Sarah is the Instructional Coach at Georgetown Day School, bringing 24 years of experience in both public and independent schools, as well as at the Superintendent of Education’s office in Washington, DC. Rooted in the Reggio Emilia approach, she centers arts integration and experiential learning in her work, designing flexible, student-driven curriculum that honors curiosity, creativity, and identity.

Sarah sees children as capable thinkers and views learning as a process of exploration—for both students and teachers. Her coaching and facilitation are grounded in reflection, collaboration, and making learning visible. She is a Certified Responsive Classroom Educator and facilitator, a Project-Based Learning Coach, and has trained through the Columbia University Coaching Program and Learning and the Brain. A passionate lifelong learner, she is also a Critical Friends Group-trained facilitator.

Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Sarah grew up surrounded by the Rocky Mountains, which sparked a lifelong love of wonder and noticing. An ISEEN facilitator since 2019, she launched the Elementary Cohort experience and invites educators to bring artifacts, share stories, and engage in joyful, immersive learning together.

Yolanda Wilcox González: History Facilitator

Yolanda is a Teacher and the Global History and Social Sciences Department Head at the Beaver Country Day School in Boston, MA. Throughout her 22-year teaching career, Yolanda has built learning environments to foster curriculum practices that are student-centered, project-based, experiential, inquiry-based, authentic, and meaningful in the lives of students. Centering the voices and lived experiences of those underrepresented in the history curriculum has been central to her teaching practices as it exposes students to all of history and not just some of it. A socially-just educator, Yolanda works with students to understand the world, their place in it, and how they can be agents of change.

A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Yolanda started a career as a draftsperson while a senior in high school and worked for an engineers' consortium. In 1989, she received a degree in Sociology/Criminal Justice and became a social worker counseling adjudicated youth with reintegration into their home and school communities after returning from juvenile placement. In 2001, Yolanda became a history teacher with the School District of Philadelphia while earning a Master's Degree in Secondary Education and her Social Studies certification. In 2005, she moved to New England, taught middle school history, and coached softball and basketball. Yolanda came to Beaver in 2011 and as the Global History and Social Sciences Department head and teaches classes on criminology and penology, theories of justice, environmental anthropology, and identity, race, and class.

Yolanda has studied and worked abroad in Rwanda, Mexico City, Morocco, Spain, and Japan. She's led faculty training on diversity issues, technology integration, culturally responsive teaching, project-based learning, and anti-bias/anti-racist teaching, specifically on widening the historical lens and disrupting dominant culture narratives. Yolanda has presented at various conferences and organizations, including, EduCon 2.7, PoCC, ISTE, LearnLaunch Boston, PennPBL, Primary Source, Multicultural Educators Forum - Fenn School, and. SXSWEdu 2015, 2019, and 2023.

Cris Harris: English Facilitator

Cris Harris serves as Hawken School’s Dean of Experiential Education, where he builds and promotes learning opportunities that put the experience of the student at the center of education, including international expeditions, backcountry courses, hands-on wilderness medicine, and investigative journalism.  As an instructional coach and consultant, he helps faculty reimagine teaching and learning as transformative opportunities that break out of traditional classroom constraints.  A writer of poetry and non-fiction, his memoir I Have Not Loved You With My Whole Heart relates his experience growing up in a household marked by addiction, faith and the AIDS crisis.  He’s currently at work on a collection of essays about paradox in memory, science and religion.  His writing has been recognized with two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards for non-fiction.  With his wife, the poet and essayist Mary Quade, Cris spends his summers writing, running, hiking, fixing up a 100 year old barn, and growing tomatoes.

Carrie Annable Kovacs: Math Facilitator

Carrie is a dynamic educator, leader, and passionate advocate for experiential mathematics education. In her various roles at Hillfield Strathallan College in Hamilton, Ontario, Carrie has led strategic academic initiatives across all four school divisions, supporting innovative teaching practices and meaningful curriculum alignment. With over 20 years of classroom experience and a career rooted in hands-on, real-world learning, Carrie brings a wealth of expertise in project-based learning (PBL), curriculum design, and instructional leadership.

Carrie holds a PhD in Education from the University of Toronto, where her research explored the impact of technology in math classrooms. She is also a trained Critical Friends Group coach, co-leads the CIS Ontario Coaching Community of Practice, and has presented on topics related to experiential learning, assessment, and instructional innovation.

Known for her collaborative spirit, reflective practice, and unwavering enthusiasm, Carrie inspires both students and educators to see math not just as numbers on a page, but as a vibrant, powerful lens for understanding the world.